Promises
by Daughter of the North
Summary: Words are powerful things; and strings of them can make promises. Vows can protect, and vows can destroy. Sometimes, we make promises we can't keep. Sometimes, broken promises shatter a family beyond repair. But vows can be kept in ways beyond the literal interpretation. A one shot from the point of view of Mr. Everdeen and his wife.


**Should this become a more-than-one-shot? Please review and tell me.**

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**PROMISES**

She was beautiful.

My daughter.

_My _daughter. My _daughter._

Katniss.

I want to jump up and down and shout. I wanted to pick her up and hold her, clutch her, with her red skin and angry face, almost as if she objected to being taken from her residence from the last nine months. She looked adorable with her scowl, and I wanted to laugh as I gathered her up in my arms. She was barely as long as my forearm and I held her reverently. Settling on the edge of the bed, a look of wonder on my face, I watched her mouth open, then close, settling into a more relaxed expression of contentment. "You know, you shouldn't scowl so much," I admonished her, "you look much more attractive without it."

Almost as if she could understand, her face screwed up again. My wife laughed, the tired burst of emotion bubbling past her lips and making me shiver with happiness. Was I ever truly happy before this? How did I ever function without both her and my daughter? I leaned towards her, and she sits up, putting her chin on my shoulder and wrapping her arms around my waist. "She's perfect, isn't she?"

"Of course," I speak softly, ripping my eyes away from my daughter so I could kiss her on the nose. "She is the definition of perfect."

"Good. I think she is beautiful," she grins at me, her blue eyes sparkling with pure joy, rivaled only by her smile on our toasting, "I'm glad you approve. She looks like you," my wife speaks with such awe in her voice, I practically burst from delight. "Just like you."

"I think she is going to be as beautiful as you."

"I don't _feel_ very beautiful at the moment. Just tired," she leaned her head into my neck. "But I don't think she looks like me. She's got your eyes. Your hair. She is an independent Seam girl, through and through."

Katniss blinks, her big grey eyes inexplicably making me think of the word _deep_. I fall in love with her even more. Seam girl? No, I don't want this girl to be a Seam girl, hopeless and hungry, growing up all too fast. Nor a merchant girl.

I smile and whisper to her "Katniss, you turn out just like your mother, okay? Just like her."

My wife giggles. "You don't want her to be like me," she shakes her head "No," my wife adds to our daughter, "you'll turn out better than me. Stronger," she turns her head to address me, "She is going to be a fighter, I can tell."

"You are very strong," I retort, glancing at her, "You just had a _baby_. That takes strength, more than I have."

She laughs. "No; this girl is going to be brave. It doesn't take bravery to have a baby, there is no other option. You just have it."

I shake my head. "I think you're wrong women. You have lots of strength. Bravery too. I want her to be just like you."

My wife laughs again. "I want her to be herself. Not me. I want her to be just Katniss."

I grin at her, then down at my little daughter. "Your mama's right, little missy; grow up to be the perfect Katniss. But let me tell you a secret," I raise her closer to my face, then smile. "Your mama is nearly always right."

She grins. "I am not."

Katniss gives a little cry, and my heart nearly breaks. She makes me feel so…complete. My little Katniss, my little darling….but no, darling isn't a good nickname for her. She isn't the kind of girl I would nickname. I'll simply call her Katniss.

Katniss Everdeen. It has the musical ring to it. _Katniss Everdeen._

I kiss her on the top of her head for the umpteenth and she gives a tiny pleased sigh. I mimic the noise handing her to her mother, cautious, still hardly able to believe that I am now in charge of this fragile new life. This little bundle, swaddled in a newly knit purple blanket, will be a vibrant young girl with sparks in her eyes and intensity. I could tell this girl would be strong, just by holding her.

"She is going to break some guys heart," I speak to my wife, unable to peel my eyes away from her.

"I hope not. I pray she has more decency than that," my wife laughed, "It doesn't feel good, breaking someone's heart."

"You'll raise her right," I tell my wife, smiling down at my baby girl. "If you don't want her to break someone's heart, you will teach her not to."

My wife shudders. "I can't imagine raising this little girl right. I am so afraid I'm going to ruin her."

"You won't mess her up." Running my finger down her downy head, I look at my wife. "You are too good to do that."

She looks down, tears in her eyes. "I don't think that is totally true."

I frown at her in concern. "You'll be a wonderful mother."

"I certainly will try. Just promise me one thing?"

"What?"

She looks at me, and her voice cracks. "Don't ever leave me."

The shock I feel as she begins crying on my shoulder feels strange amidst my joy. I am so elated about this prospect of raising my daughter; I am having a hard time understanding how my wife could be afraid of anything. At this moment, I am just full of so much hope; hope for this little girl, hope for everything. Certainly, if life can offer me such happiness, then everything will turn out all right.

Obviously, my wife isn't thinking along the same lines as I, so I assuage her with an assurance I don't take lightly. "I won't leave you. I promise."

She looks up at me, tears in her blue eyes. I lean forward, and kiss her softly on the forehead.

* * *

He broke his promise. He broke his promise. He broke his promise.

That is all I can think as I sit in at the kitchen table, staring into space. I hear Prim sobbing. Prim. My daughter. I want to help her; reach out and comfort her, but I can't. Something holds me back, bonds of pain and anger. I cannot believe he is gone. I can't believe he is never coming back. He is dead, crushed beneath tons of rock, trying to protect me, protect them. And I couldn't protect him. He is rotting down there. Did he suffocate? Did he die quickly? I see him in his dingy shirt, trying to pull his body up from the claustrophobic space as dust tumbles down. Boulders fall down, catching him, crushing his legs. I see him scream, but look up at me, reaching towards me, looking in pain, but brave. My husband always put a brave face on for me.

I shake my head to clear the images of my strong husband smiling at me, slowly gasping for breath, but I can't. His last moments repeat in my head, over and over. I lived for him. I left my family for him. I moved to the Seam, for him. Him. Him. _Him._

He had promised me. And he had broken his promise.

He is gone. That awful explosion made him go away. He left, left forever. He is dead and now all I have is no food in a tiny house that he built, full of memories of him, with my two daughters wasting away inside. Prim sobs again. She is starving, I know. Starving to death. I have seen enough patients to know that the end is in sight for my child. She is too weak to do much but watch me and cry. Soon she'll be dead, like him. I don't want her to be dead. I do not want to die. I want _him_ alive. But I feel as if I am dead on the inside, like loss is working its way from my heart to the surface. Prim whimpers again as she looks at me, her knobby knees pulled up to her chin.

I am allowing her to starve to death.

I give a shudder, but I cannot move. The whole world seems foggy, lost. I feel incapable, as if all the life in me has ebbed away in the face of this new pain. I am rooted in my chair. Why am I still alive? He was my life, he was everything. He was my reason for walking, for breathing, for smiling. Why was I here?

Why didn't I die in the mine with him?

Because of my daughters, I know. I must take care of them. But I have already failed them. Why don't I just let them go now? That would be the merciful thing to do. We will be taken advantage of. Nothing good awaits either of them; I can just feel it in my bones. We are a family broken beyond repair.

My husband would've known what to say to me to get me out of the chair. He would've sat at my feet and glanced up at me. He would've said something like _"You're wrong women; taking their lives isn't a good idea. They have so much to live for. Look at Prim, a little healer, already half as pretty as you. I'm going to fight to keep the guys away from her. And Katniss…that girl, she is going to get out of this district. Look in her eyes and tell me you don't see the strength!"_

Of course, he wasn't here. Isn't that I reason to not go on?

I stare into space, wanting the pain to end, feeling the darkness descending upon my head, upon my being. I stare at my daughter's small form shuddering at the table. "Mommy," she looks at me, face so like my own. Like my own expression that I can see reflecting in the window, a ghostly follow visage hovering over the rain outside. "I'm hungry. Please talk. _Please_ mommy."

I stare at her, wanting to do something. Instead, all I do it look at her thin body and feel betrayed by everything. Maybe it would be better to allow her to die now. Before she truly understands how cruel the world is, before she has to face the demise of her already cracking goodness.

No, I know the answer. It is better for her to die now. But something my chest contracts at that, so I simply stare at her threadbare sweater that is still too big for her emaciated frame as she continues to talk. "Mommy, I'm scared. Mommy, please talk. Mommy, Katniss says she hates you. Mommy? _Mommy!_"

A small sliver of me wants to talk, but my mouth does not move. When was the last time I talked? I cannot remember. I cannot remember anything; all I recall was the captain, dooming my husband. Why can't I remember? Has it been raining all this time? I do not even remember sitting down in this chair, or eating. I vaguely recall images; Katniss screaming at me, Prim staring at the table, my fingers shaking. At least I should talk before I let her die, but I can't even get my throat to open up. Guilt causes me to look down at my hands.

He is gone. Gone. Gone. I want Prim to go be with him. He was always the better parent.

I messed my daughters up.

Thunder rolls in the distance, but I barely note it.

And then the door swings open.

Katniss appears, mud and water running down her face. Katniss. But in this lighting, it's _him _with the rain behind her and my hunger-induced dizziness, I can almost see my husband.

"_I won't leave you. I promise."_

Why did he have to die?

"_I promise. I promise. I promise. I won't leave you."_

Then I see Katniss truly for the first time since the accident. Katniss. Katniss, now with a spark of life in her eyes. I had watched them become dull, dull and cloudy like the old miners who lost hope. She had been desolate, a slip of a girl deteriorating with all the strength and will in her gone. She had used to be a lively thing; laughing and smiling, but a few short weeks (or had it been months?) had turned her into an old women, scavenging the gutters to afford scraps for her, Prim and I.

But here she stands, hair clinging to her face, standing in the door bread in her hands, clutched to her chest like it was her lifeline.

I look at her, and feel pain as I again see her as my husband.

"_I won't leave you. I promise."_

I blink at Katniss. She looks so much like him, with her Seam eyes and olive skin. So much like him.

"_I won't leave you. I promise."_

Katniss. Everyone called Katniss her father's daughter. Look at her; taking care of me, even when I was so despicable that I sat and stared as she screamed at me, as she shook me, as she comforted Prim. I wasn't functioning. She was; through her grief, she tried to protect us.

She was too young to have to carry this burden. But here I was, letting her drag it. She wasn't allowing us to die. Just like he would do; he wouldn't allow us to die.

"_I won't leave you. I promise. I promise."_

I look at Katniss, slowly realizing something, almost as if knowledge was shifting its way through my thoughts. It was painful; every truth it lit up reminded me of how much I was failing. I was not raising my daughter's right. My husband had had faith in my abilities to rear them, and I was letting him down. More darkness fell over me. I had abandoned them. He had promised not to leave, and I had vowed to raise our daughters.

Only he had broken his promise, and I had failed to protect them.

I was a failure. I had always been a failure.

And he hadn't tried to break his promise. He had tried to come back to me, his failure, his overly emotional wife who wasn't brave and wasn't strong, a girl who messed up his children. Yet he had promised not to leave me.

I stare at Katniss, feeling a stirring of pride. She had managed to live with the sorrow of losing to parents at once; her father to the mine, and me to the dingy recesses of my head. She was taking care of me, just like he would've.

"_I won't leave you. I promise. I promise."_

He hadn't left us. He had left me Katniss, who looked so much like him, and Prim, who was just as selfless as him. Guilt strafes my soul, and I shudder, shocked at the vibrancy of the raw emotion battering my spindly frame. I hadn't felt something so starkly since I had fallen into the mist of sorrow. Everything had been hard to grasp, but suddenly I have clarity.

I look at my daughters. My daughters; a piece of me and a piece of him. And I had left them in my own selfish sorrow. Were they not children crying because they had lost their father? Before, I would've felt guilty and curled my arms tighter around myself, but now the thought spurred me on as I squinted at the worn quilt tucked around my legs.

I look up at Katniss and shakily get to my feet, pledging again to my husband. _I won't abandon them again. I promise._

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**Please tell me what you think, even if all you say is 'Good'.**


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